Transplant cures allergy
Tuesday November 12th, 2013
A child has been cured of peanut allergy by a bone marrow transplant, it has been revealed.
The
child, aged ten, received the transplant for leukaemia, not for the allergy.
He had been diagnosed at the age of 15 months after suffering severe reactions and developing hives as a reaction to the allergy.
But after the treatment doctors discovered the child seemed no longer to react to peanuts - and this was confirmed with a test conducted by an allergist.
Doctors said the main lesson from the boy's story was to shed new insights on the nature of allergy. But as stem cell treatments are developed in the future, it may offer new routes for treatments for severe allergy.
In the past it has been suggested that bone marrow transplants - and liver transplants - might have transferred an allergy to a recipient.
The findings were reported to the conference of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Dr Steven Weiss, from Syosset, New York, USA, who reported the boy's story, said: "Food allergy is associated with the body's abnormal production of high specific IgE levels.
"This case, in addition to the previous reports, indicates that genetic modification during the early stages of immune cell development in bone marrow may play a large role in causing allergy."
American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology 8 November 2013
Tags: Allergies & Asthma | Cancer | North America | Transplant
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